failing upward

friday favorites

That’s something a good friend of mine said on the phone to me earlier this week. I happen to think she’s right. I do make a pretty decent effort to surround myself with people I know will lift me up rather than drag me down or drain me of my emotional resources.

When I survey the group of people I’m blessed enough to call my friends, I’m blown away.

Talented artists. Writers. Musicians.

Fervent believers. Inspirers. Teachers.

Comedians. Listeners. Sympathizers.

I could go on all day.

Basically, if you’re not friends with my friends, I feel sorry for you because they’re baller.

Not literally, of course. The fact that I bore a child almost four months ago attests to that fact.

But figuratively. I’ve got some balls. And that’s my favorite thing about myself this week.

There are certain aspects about our life that Dan and I aren’t content with. I say that vaguely, because for the most part it’s great. But there are certain things about that we feel called to change. So we’ve started exploring some options on how to do that.

One of my ex-coworkers and his wife did things kind of the way we’d like to. So, a couple weeks ago, I called my coworker and then emailed his wife. Today I had lunch with her.

How does that take cojones, you ask?

Well, before our lunch today I’d never met her. Ever.

Takes some pretty big balls to go out to lunch with someone you’ve never met. But had I not reached out to her, I wouldn’t have had a great meeting and gleaned practical knowledge for motherhood.

You know, I don’t have a lot of fashion sense. I typically recycle the same five tee-shirt-jeans-flip-flops-or-holey-sneakers outfits each week. But today, I feel like I kind of pulled something together. Something that’s actually kind of, like, feminine.

Blue cami, brown cardigan, dark skinny jeans, brown Sperry’s. It’s not frequent, but every once in a while, I nail it.

My favorite thing about myself this week is that I don’t take myself too seriously. Life’s too short for that nonsense. I’m never too proud to make others laugh at my own expense. Case in point: this video I shot for an upcoming event at my church:

Tallahasseeans: I better see you at E3 on October 26th at 7PM! Some amazing singers will be battling for the winning title and I’m in the band, tickling some ivories and dropping some mad BGVs (no solo performances for me, thankfully).

Not sure why, but I’ve always felt like a sexy vixen (rawr) whenever I paint my nails black. While it’s extremely rare that I have the time to paint my nails any color these days, I was able to snag some time last weekend to finally sit down and give myself a little nail-love with my favorite OPI.

I was always that girl who, at slumber parties, painted her nails something other than pink or purple. I always went for the crazy, weird colors. And once I discovered black, well, I never went back, as they say. Therefore, I feel the most like myself when my nails are black, as weird as that sounds. And after a week of second guessing things about my character, it was nice to be able to bring myself back to center, even if it was in the most minuscule way.

Welcome to the first installment of an indefinitely long self-love blog series called friday favorites. Each Friday, I’ll post a blog highlighting something about myself I really dig as an act of self-love discipline.

And so, without further ado, this week’s favorite is my eyes.

Pretty much everyone on my mom’s side of the family has blue eyes. Blonde hair, too. There’s no denying the European influence in our genes. But our eyes, and I guess mine for the sake of this blog, are especially rad. Not only are they cool because they’re a pretty color (not unlike the sky or ocean!) but they’re recessive. So that means that, eventually, they won’t exist anymore. People with eyes like mine will be just as mythical as unicorns. I love that! (By the way, I’m working off of the assumption that unicorns DID exist at one point, so don’t try to refute that with your “facts” and “science”.)

I’m practically a unicorn!

While I was pregnant, Dan kept praying that our son would get my eyes. Because of their unicorn-like tendencies, and Dan’s dominant brown eyes, I was skeptical. All babies are born with blue eyes, so for the time being, Dan’s prayer has been answered. So that’s another reason I love my eyes — because I can see them in my son.

However, a good friend of ours was so bold as to say that, based on the shade of blue they are now, she thinks Dax’s eyes will stay blue like mine! What do you think?

Gotta be honest. I hope so!

Okay, now here’s the part where you chime in. Because I’m not doing this alone, y’all. What’s your favorite thing about yourself this week? Comment and tell me!